Smiths Group targets £11 million procurement savings

UK technology company Smiths Group aims to save £11 million through procurement next year.

The FTSE 100 firm's preliminary results showed it had cut costs by £9 million in the past 12 months as better data enabled it to use group spending power more effectively.

Smiths has saved a total of £17 million since 2008 through restructuring and it wants to make cutbacks of £50 million over the next two years.

The reorganisation involved increasing procurement collaboration across its five divisions to make savings in IT, utilities, packaging and injections moulding. Further opportunities exist to reduce costs on travel spend and raw material prices.

The supply chain at Smiths Medical also showed improvement after problems last year caused by manufacturing relocations and the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning system (Web news, 18 February 2008).